viewtopic.php?f=12&t=499
I separated this section out because I thought it was better in the Research area, and would be easier to find for future reference. You win some
![Thumbs up! :-bd](./images/smilies/113.gif)
![Thumbs down :-q](./images/smilies/112.gif)
And for "tare":TAROT n.m. --- 1604; 1534, Rabelais; Ital tarocco, de tara "tare", de l'arabe tarh 'Deduction"...
So we know the word has a history before tarot, going back at least to 1318.TARE n.f. --- 1318, "Dechet dans le poids ou de qualite"; It. tara; arabe tarhah, deduction, decompte...
Now I want to post the part that was missing before, from Dummett, Game of Tarot pp. 426-427. Since the passage is rather long, I will highlight the sentences most important for present purposes:tare n.[ Fr.; It. & Sp. tara; Ar. tarhah < taraha, to reject.]. 1. the weight of a container, wrapper, box, truck, etc., deducted from the total weight to determine the weight of the contents or load. 2. the deducton of this.
Now, with very few exceptions, it is characteristic of later Tarot games, of the most diverse kinds and whatever the size of the pack, that there is no stock of undealt cards, but that every card in the pack counts, at the end of the round, to one or another player or side. It is almost equally characteristic that there is a small residue of undealt cards forming a talon, which, in games without bidding, goes to the dealer, and whose distribution, in games with bidding, depends upon the final bid; in each case, those receiving additional cards must discard an equal number, under certain nearly constant constraints. This practice is not a mere device for handling the situation when the number of cards in the pack is not exactly divisible by the number of players, since it is observed in three-handed games, even without bidding, played with the 78-card pack; the most striking example is that of Tarok-Quadrille, played by four players with only 76 cards, in which the dealer still takes four extra cards. Even Minchiate is not a genuine exception to this rule, because, although the mechanics are different, there are still discards, and the principle is upheld that the players should know how many cards of each suit are in play, even though not every card belongs at the end of the round to one side or the other. Both the Bolognese and Sicilian games incorporate the standard practice. It therefore seems overwhelmingly probable that the practice is one going back to an early stage in the history of the Tarot games: the fact that it is found in both Bolognese and Sicilian Tarocchi debars us from supposing that it was invented outside Italy and introduced there only at the time of the invasion of the Tarot de Marseille pattern int he eighteenth century. This conclusion is reinforced by an etymological consideration. In the terminology used in Germany, the discard was almost always referred to as the Scat, and this name was also used, by transference, for the talon; the exception is the game of Cego, in which the talon is called the Blinde and the discard the Legage. In Austria, too, the term Scat, sometimes in the form Scar, was originally used, although it was later dropped in favour of the French word Talon for the talon, with no separate noun being used for the discard. The words Scat and Scar are obviously corruptions of the Italian word scarto, meaning 'discard', and it therefore seems likely that the practice itself is of Italian origin. It might be objected that the borrowing of the term Scat may have occurred only after the reintroduction of the 78-card game from France into Italy in the eighteenth century; we know that Viennese Tarot players of the mid-eighteenth century borrowed a specific form of play from Lombardy, and, with it, an Italianate vocabulary, and that this Viennese/Lombard game spread into Germany and as far as the Netherlands. But this objection appears unsound: classic Tarot games, in which the word Scat was used, were being played in Germany before the spread of the Viennese/Lombard game.
A possible source for the practice may have been a card game called Scartino, of which we hear much from a brief period around 1500: there are over a dozen references to it between 1492 and 1517 (footnote 8). We have no idea how Scartino was played, although it appears to have demanded a special type of pack; for instance, Lodovico il Moro wrote in 1496 to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este complaining that the latter had not sent him the carte de scartino that he had promised, and there are other references to orders for packs of Scartino cards. The game seems to have originated from Ferrara: it was a favourite game both of Beatrice d'Este, wife of Lodovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, and of Isabella d'Este, wife of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. The name Scartino is presumably connected with the verb scartare, 'to discard', and games are often named after their most characteristic or novel feature. It is therefore a possibility that this was a trick-taking game in which a new practice was introduced, namely that the dealer took some extra cards and discarded a corresponding number. If so, it could be that it was from Scartino that this practice was taken over into Tarocco games, in which it had been previously unknown, and that Scartino, after its short-lived popularity, died out, having made a lasting contribution to card play. This, of course, is the merest guess: Scartino may not have been a trick-taking game at all, but, say, one in which the winner was the player who first contrived to get rid of all his cards after the fashion of a Stops game.
If Scartino did influence Tarocco, it is possible that the practice whereby the dealer took extra cards and made a corresponding discard was not an original feature of Tarot games, but was incorporated into them about the beginning of the sixteenth century, in time for it to be imported, as a feature of the game, when Tarot arrived in Switzerland. In that case, the French games described in the Maison academique may represent a yet more ancient tradition; if our conjecture that they were derived from Piedmont is correct, Tarot playing in that region may go back to the very earliest times, the players remaining exceptionally conservative. But the hypothesis that the important feature of the discard was borrowed from Scartino should be treated with great caution, since it implies a continued mutual influence between the style of Tarocco play in all four great early centres, Ferrara, Milan, Bologna and Florence.
Footnote 8: For reference to Scartino, as played by Beatrice, Isabella, Ercole, Ippolito and Alfonso d'Este, Ludovico il Moro, and others, see: F. Malaguzzi-Valeri, La carte di Locovico il Moro, vol. 1, Milan, 1913, p. 575; A. Venturi, 'Relazioni artistiche tra le corti di Milano e Ferrara nel secolo XV', Archivio Storico Lombardo, anno XII (pp. 255-280), 1885, p. 254; A. Luzio and R. Renier, Mantova e Urbino, Turin and Rome, 1893, pp. 63-5, especially fn. 3, p. 63; the same two authors, 'Delle relazioni di Isabella d'Este Gonzaga con Lodivico e Beatrice Sforza', Archivio Storico Lombardo, anno XVII (pp. 74-119, 346-99, 619-74), 1890, p. 368, fn. 1, and pp. 379-80; A Luzio I precettori d'Esabella d'Este,, p. 22; G. Bertoni, 'Tarocchi versificati' in Poesie, leggende, costumanze del medio evoModena, 1917, p. 219; and the Diario Ferrarese of 1499 in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 24, p. 376. A letter of August 1493 quoted by Malaguzzi-Valeri and by Luzio and Renier appears to imply that Scartino was a three-handed game. The earliest reference is from 1492; one is from 1509, one from 1517, and all the rest from the 1490's. Several concern the obtaining or ordering of packs of Scartino cards (para de carte da scartino or para de scartini), which appear all to have come from Ferrara; what was special about these cards there is no way of telling. It is just conceivable that Scartino was itself a particular type of Tarot game, and that these were therefore Tarot packs of a special type; but, unless they were very special, it does not seem very likely that Lodovico Sforza should have been having to obtain Tarot packs from elsewhere. Most of the references are about games of Scartino being played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skat_%28card_game%29mikeh wrote:To be fair, my example would better have not been Haagendasz, but something from the 15th or 16th century. I don't know whether there was a regular rule that game-makers followed when they created new names for games or aspects of them: for example, is there. for example, a tramsformation pattern by which "scartare" leads to "Scaratino" and to "scat"? I don't know enough about 15th century card games/terms and how they came about.
More info (German)Skat was developed by the members of the Brommesche Tarok-Gesellschaft[1] between 1810 and 1817 in Altenburg,[2] in what is now the Federal State of Thuringia, Germany, based on the three-player game of Tarock, also known as Tarot, and the four-player game of Schafkopf (the American equivalent being Sheepshead).[3] In the earliest known form of the game, the player in prior position was dealt twelve cards to the other players' ten each, made two discards, constituting the skat, and then announced a contract.[4] But the main innovation of this new game was then that of the Bidding process.[5]
The first text book on the rules of Skat was published in 1848 by a secondary school Professor called J. F. L. Hempel. Nevertheless, the rules continued to differ by region until the first attempt to set them in order was made by a congress of Skat players on Saturday, 7th of August 1886 in Altemburg, being the first official rules finally published in book form in 1888 by Theodor Thomas of Leipzig.[6] The current rules, followed by both the ISPA and the German Skat Federation, date from Jan. 1, 1999.[7]
The very word Skat is a Tarok term[8] deriving from the Italian word scarto, "scartare", which means to discard or reject,[9] and its derivative "scatola", a box, or a place for safe-keeping. The word scarto is one still used in other Italian card games to this day, and in some German works the word is found spelled "scat".
I have been re-reading this thread, looking for your or Depaulis's documentation that the word "taroc" is known in Romance languages, meaning "stump, block, trunk" etc. Which Romance languages, with what documentation showing that it existed in that sense before 1500? If it did not exist in Latin, as Depaulis says, why do you think it existed in Italian or French?It is also unnecessary given that the word "taroc" is known in Romance languages, with an original meaning in the range of "stump, block, trunk" etc.
I would feel a lot better about this theory if there actually were examples before 1500 of the word "taroc" being used in that sense. So I am on the lookout. I thought I was onto something, but then I ran into a dead end. I was reading an old translation of Herodotus's Histories Book III, looking at a story there about the Persian King Cambyses that might fit an Egyptianate reading of the Maison-Dieu card. In the English translation, the word "blockhead" turned up--an unusual choice, I thought. Cambyses is telling the Egyptian priests that they are blockheads for worshiping a flesh and blood calf. Here is the passage:A derived meaning is "stupid, imbecile, idiot" etc.
When the priests returned bringing Apis with them, Cambyses, like the harebrained person that he was, drew his dagger, and aimed at the belly of the animal, but missed his mark, and stabbed him in the thigh.Then he laughed, and said thus to the priests:- "Oh! blockheads, and think ye that gods become like this, of flesh and blood, and sensible to steel? A fit god indeed for Egyptians, such an one! But it shall cost you dear that you have made me your laughing-stock." When he had so spoken, he ordered those whose business it was to scourge the priests, and if they found any of the Egyptians keeping festival to put them to death. (http://www.greektexts.com/library/Herod ... ng/54.html).
29. [1] ὡς δὲ ἤγαγον τὸν Ἆπιν οἱ ἱρέες, ὁ Καμβύσης, οἷα ἐὼν ὑπομαργότερος, σπασάμενος τὸ ἐγχειρίδιον, θέλων τύψαι τὴν γαστέρα τοῦ Ἄπιος παίει τὸν μηρόν· γελάσας δὲ εἶπε πρὸς τοὺς ἱρέας [2]«ὦ κακαὶ κεφαλαί, τοιοῦτοι θεοὶ γίνονται, ἔναιμοί τε καὶ σαρκώδεες καὶ ἐπαΐοντες σιδηρίων; ἄξιος μέν γε Αἰγυπτίων οὗτός γε ὁ θεός, ἀτάρ τοι ὑμεῖς γε οὐ χαίροντες γέλωτα ἐμὲ θήσεσθε.»ταῦτα εἴπας ἐνετείλατο τοῖσι ταῦτα πρήσσουσι τοὺς μὲν ἱρέας ἀπομαστιγῶσαι, Αἰγυπτίων δὲ τῶν ἄλλων τὸν ἂν λάβωσι ὁρτάζοντα κτείνειν.
Or in machine-English:Fu condutto pe sacerdoti avanti a Cambyse ilquale come lo vide ridendo o pasi disse sono cosi futti gli dei che habbiano carne e sangue e cosi dicendo tratta la spada percosse Apis intro uno coscia e feci batterei sacerdoti con le scope e commesse a suoi che ciascuno de gli Egitti quale si trovasse festeggiare fusse ucisso.
The Italian is much shorter than the English or Greek. Perhaps "taroc' occurs in the manuscript version, if any survived. That is my dead end.It was ahead condutto pe priests to Cambyse ilquale as he/she saw him/it laughing or pasi said I am so futti the gods that habbiano meat and blood and so saying treats the sword it struck Apis intro a thigh and I did I would beat priests with the brooms and orders to his that every de the Egittis which it was found to celebrate fusse ucisso.
I am not sure what Depaulis's reasoning is for the rule-change at just that time. Dummett suggested it as a conjecture, but not as a fact, that it happened at just the right time and place, Ferrara beginning of the 16th century). I posted the passage at the top of this page (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=502&start=20#p7182). The discard rule would have started in the game of Scartino, a game documented in relation to Beatrice d'Este in 1496; the term means "discard". If the particular rule about the dealer discarding existed in Scartino and passed over to the game of triumphs, then, yes, the dates for Scartino's popularity (documented until 1517) suggest a name change such as Depaulis suggests, since these are the "rejected" cards. I think Huck suggested that scartino might have been brought from Naples by a d'Este girl (Beatrice) in temporary residence there.Un soupçon d'étymologie
L'étymologie du mot tarot a excité l'imagination de nombreux auteurs, tant italiens (les premiers, dès le XVI' siècle) que français. Une origine grecque a longtemps eu la faveur des humanistes et érudits (Andrea Alciato, Agnolo Monosino, L.A. Muratori, Pasqualino père et fils), qui y ont vu successivement hetarôkoi (sic pour hetairikoi « compagnonniques ») tarikhos « condiment épicé » (car le jeu est piquant...), tarros (forme de tarsos) « rangée des doigts », parce qu'on... range ses cartes les unes à côté des autres, etc. En I 704, le jésuite français Claude-François Ménestrier penchait lui aussi pour le grec, suggérant un dérivé de teirein « user, percer à force de frotter » (à cause des dos imprimés de petits motifs répétés, comme une grille). En 1759, l'évêque Giuseppe Vinci, pourtant protopape des Grecs de Messine, auteur d'un Etymologicum siculum (1759), suggérait de faire venir tarocco de l'hébreu. tora, « significante figura ». Avec la mode de l'égyptomanie à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les explications par l'égyptien antique (qui restait, pourtant, inconnu!) deviennent à la mode. Antoine Court de Gébelin voit dans tarot «deux mots orientaux Tar et Rho, Rho qui signifie chemin royal » (Monde primitif VI, 1778), précisant même un peu plus tard (Monde primitif, VIII, 1781) que c'est «pur égyptien», une affirmation péremptoire qui fait sourire aujourd'hui.
Alors que le XIX siècle continue de chercher son chemin, le XXe se tourne vers l'arabe. Ici aussi les propositions fantaisistes côtoient des approches plus sérieuses. Oublions les rapprochements avec l'arabe torcha «jeter, lancer», ou taraq (racine trq) « frapper » (et, paraît-il aussi, « prophétiser »), pour suivre plutôt le fil de tarh; «déduction» (même verbe taraha mais au sens de «rejeter; déduire»), qui est à l'origine des mots tare (poids du contenant déduit du total, puis défaut), tarer (peser le contenant vide, former un défaut). taré (qui a un défaut) — et autant en italien: tara, tarare, taratura, etc. C'est à cette filiation que l'orientaliste allemand Karl Lokotsch a proposé le premier de rattacher l'italien tarocco — source du français tarot. Il a été suivi par le grand philologue suisse Walther von Wartburg, auteur d'un monumental dictionnaire étymologique du français. Celui-ci explique en effet que le jeu de tarot suppose une sorte de déduction, « parce que dans ce jeu le joueur doit, dans certaines circonstances, mettre de côté une carte » (Franzosisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, XIX: Orientalia, 1967, p. 182-3, tarhe (ar.) 'abzug', et O. Bloch et W. von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 5e édition, Paris, 1968, TAROT).
Or ce n'est pas dans certaines circonstances que l'on met «de côté » une carte, c'est en toutes circonstances. Un des premiers gestes du jeu consiste en effet à faire un écart que le donneur prend pour lui dans les formes anciennes, ou qui reste sur la table et sera remporté par le meilleur enchérisseur dans les règles modernes. Voilà qui justifierait cette étymologie, qui ne fait pas l'unanimité mais a pour elle de sérieux atouts.
Il est cependant un point qu'ignorent tous les linguistes, c'est que tarot/tarocco n'est pas le nom originel du tarot: pendant tout le XV" siècle, celui-ci est appelé trionfi (voir chapitre 2). Le nom du jeu a changé: après 1500, tarocchi (singulier tarocco) se substitue, en quelques décennies, au vocable trionfi. Les raisons de ce changement ne sont pas claires mais celui-ci pourrait être dû à une modification significative des règles ou de la conduite du jeu. Nous savons trop peu de la façon de jouer au XVe siècle, mais un des rares points assurés est qu'on jouait à quatre, ce qui laissait deux cartes en trop après la donne. Or; après 1500, on joue aussi à trois, mais avec un «écart» de trois cartes, que rien n'obligeait à faire (puisque 78 est divisible par trois). Cette innovation aurait entraîné un changement de nom pour le jeu, ainsi devenu tarocco. Une sorte de «déduction». Reconnaissons qu'aucun élément ancien ne vient appuyer cette théorie qui reste, pour le moment, la meilleure hypothèse ou la moins aventureuse.
A suspicion of etymology
The etymology of the word tarot has excited the imagination of many authors, both Italian (the first, as early as the sixteenth century) and French. A Greek origin has long been favored by humanists and scholars (Andrea Alciato, Agnolo Monosino, L. A. Muratori, Pasqualino father and son), who have successively seen hetarôkoi (sic for hetairikoi, "companions"), tarikhos "spicy condiment" ("for the game is piquant”), taros (form of tarsos ) “row of fingers” because we put our cards next to each other, and so on. In the year 1704, the French Jesuit Claude-François Ménestrier also leaned toward Greek, suggesting a derivative of teirein "use, pierce, by dint of rubbing" (because of the backs printed with small repetitive patterns, like a grid). In 1759, Bishop Giuseppe Vinci, who was a protopope [?] of the Greeks of Messina, the author of an Etymologicum siculum [1759], suggested that tarocco should come from the Hebrew tora, "significant figure". With the Egyptian fashion at the end of the eighteenth century, explanations by the ancient Egyptian (which remained, however, unknown!) become fashionable. Antoine Court de Gébelin sees in tarot "two Eastern words Tar and Rho, Rho meaning royal road" (Monde Primitif VI, 1778), even specifying a little later Monde Primitif, VIII, 1781) that it is "pure Egyptian", a peremptory affirmation that makes us smile today.
As the 19th century continues to seek its way, the 20th century turns to Arabic. Here, too, fanciful propositions coincide with more serious approaches. Forget about reconciliations with Arabic torcha "to throw," or taraq (root trq, also "to prophesy"), rather to follow the thread of tarh, "deduction" {the same verb taraha but in the sense of "reject, deduct"), which is at the origin of the words tare (weight of the container deducted from the total, then defect), tarer (weigh the empty container, form a defect). taré (which has a defect) - and as much in Italian: tara, tarare, taratura, etc. It is to this lineage that the German Orientalist Karl Lokotsch proposed first to link the Italian tarocco - source of the French tarot . He was followed by the great Swiss philologist Walther von Wartburg, author of a monumental etymological dictionary of French. The latter explains that the game of tarot assumes a kind of deduction, “because in this game the player must, under certain circumstances, set aside a card" (Franzosisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, XIX Orientalia, 1967, p 182-3, tarhe (ar.) 'Abzug', and O. Bloch and W. von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 5th edition, Paris, 1968, TAROT).
But it is not in certain circumstances that a card is set aside, it is in all circumstances. One of the first gestures of the game is to make a discard that the dealer takes for himself in the old forms, or that remains on the table and will be won by the highest bidder in modern rules. This would justify this etymology, which is not unanimous but has for it serious advantages.
There is, however, one point which all the linguists are ignorant of: that tarot/tarocco is not the original name for the tarot: during the whole of the fifteenth century it is called trionfi (see chaper 2). The name of the game changed: after 1500 tarocchi (singular tarocco ) replaces, in a few decades, the word trionfi. The reasons for this change are unclear, but this could be due to a significant change in the rules or conduct of the game. We know too little about how it was played in the fifteenth century, but one of the rare points is that it is played by four, which left two extra cards after the deal; but after 1500 it is played by three, but with a "discard" of three cards. (Since 78 is divisible by three). This innovation would have resulted in a change of name for the game, thus become tarocco A kind of "deduction." We recognize that no old element has appeared to supports this theory, but it remains, for the moment, the best or least adventurous hypothesis.